Move in the Night
by Mmedubarry
Summary: It all changed with one sentence, "I made a move in the night" and the aftermath left them both in a mess of consequences and deeper feelings. This is an alternative take on the road to recovery for Harvey and Jessica then what we saw on screen.


[A/N: So I have a confession, I discovered Suits and I am obsessed. What an incredible cast of characters, and the writers are just fantastic. This is my take on the 'Move in the Night' Harvey made on Jessica - a little more Jarvey centric- and their underlying feelings for one another. This piece is a character examination and the chain of events that Harvey set in motion. I love these two together and I think they have off the charts chemistry, which I hope the writers will explore at some point. Reads and Reviews are appreciated! Hope I can entertain you for a few moments of your day!]

Several weeks had passed since Harvey's deal with Darby became open knowledge to Jessica. Harvey had come clean, but not clean enough in her mind.

Sitting in her office chair Jessica eyes glazed over at the evening skyline of the city twinkling against the dark winter night sky. For years the city had been her oyster. Jessica had been the empress of the legal sector for many years but when she became the only managing women partner in the city, it cemented her as a goddess in the legal world. Jessica had reached mount Olympus and had dined at the proverbial table with the gods, and in turn they had showered her with a plethora of gifts – wealth, prosperity, desirability, and a promise of becoming a legend. However, with a few choice words and actions by her protégé, ally and friend it became apparent the fall from the mountain was long, hard and brutally wounding. She couldn't help but think the higher the pedestal, the steeper the fall. She wondered could she get up after this one in one piece or would the damage be to permanent to her aching soul.

Jessica found herself lately replaying that infamous night on the rooftop often, and most of the time it was in the most inopportune moments. After that conversation, Harvey and her spoke only for necessary business purposes but that was the extent. She did after all, still have a business to run and ever since Harvey's confession, she guarded her gate evermore ferociously. Words were only exchanged out of necessity and cause.

Now sitting in the silence and darkness of her office in the late night, Jessica again began reflecting back to that autumn evening on the rooftop of her empire, to that ugly moment when the veil was lifted and Harvey had come clean. The breeze turned frigid, time had stopped; as did her heart.

She had told Harvey with no uncertainty to remove himself from her presence.

The request was her insurance policy because the rattle of betrayal, anger and devastating sadness was beginning to take over her ability to control herself. At that moment she knew she could not be held responsible for her actions. She began losing that well preserved control she had developed over the years. Never had she felt like her body was being ripped into three figurative pieces.

A part of her was shell-shocked; shocked at the gall of the man standing in front of her. After everything she had done for him…and with all the wars that they stood as united front, the deep rooted respect and loyalty that came hand in hand with the years behind them, and the cemented foundation of partnership was ripped to shreds by one sentence involving the phrase 'move in the night'; a phrase that she had taught him and the chess pieces to line up to do so. She stood on that very rooftop and blindly told him years ago how she was going to take Gordon, Schmitt and Van Dyke in the night because it was when they were sleeping, figuratively speaking. Clearly he filed that strategy in his playbook because he used it on her. Her eyes were closed when it came to Harvey, how could she have fallen asleep in such blind trust? She didn't know whether to laugh of cry at her blindness and naivety in trusting the maverick in her wheelhouse. That prick Daniel had the foresight to call the evident betrayal in his last words with her. That was the part that surmised the need to cry; how it all went to hell so quickly and how accurate Daniel had been in reading the writing on the wall. How ironic that the writing on the wall was what Harvey wanted the whole time, to see the name Spector on the wall no matter what the price. She never realized she had a bounty over her head, but apparently she did, and Harvey had shown her what she was worth. She rationed, she wasn't worth a whole hell of a lot to him. This part of her was her ego spinning and rationing the situation.

The second piece of her body that shifted was her gut. She felt nauseous, like everything inside her was constricting with physical pain and her body was acting on its own accord without her being able to control it. She felt like she could have healed over at the pain that Harvey had just inflicted on her. His confession was like taking a bullet. She physically felt ill, her skin burned like it was steaming and the cool breeze shocked her senses enough to cover her body with goose bumps that pricked her skin like needles. Her lungs felt like they were turning into iron, letting less air get into them with every breath. She felt constricted in her ribcage with every breath, like her lungs weren't big enough to hold the air she needed to calm her nerves. She could feel the bile coming up her insides, burning a reflux of fire within.

Her ears were ringing and the whistle of the wind mocked her ears, as it tunneled on the roof playing an aggressive tune in her ears. She saw black in front of her. The twinkling lights of her city dimmed; an instant city wide black out, everything circuited around her. Her safe place that this roof became was now tainted, ugly and haunted all because of one statement 'I made a move in the night'.

Oh, but her heart …that was the part that she was having the hardest time reconciling. Over the years Jessica became a master at protecting her heart, making moves and avoiding the tax of her actions and those of others at all costs especially in her professional position. She learned how to turn it off and have her brain overcompensate by making cold calculated calls and in turn taking well adverse risks and deals. She knew how to minimize consequences and not let it affect her emotions and her most valuable asset because she knew in her position it could very easily change her and she needed to always remain constant. Jessica had mastered how to give people enough to let them think they had her heart by overcompensating with her quick wit, cunning tongue, elegance, politeness and prowess as a woman but her heart she kept that to herself; only showing it on the odd occasion. The person had to be acutely aware of its appearance and highly observant because it only ever came out for a moment. Like a shooting star, the moment only lasted a few seconds.

Harvey was one of those people could always see those moments.

Although they never spoke of their intimate moments, when more was said with their eyes than their words or physical circumstances ever could, it was always there, between the lines, between the looks, between the coy smiles and undernoted energy.

Maybe that's why it hurt so much?

Because they never could say these things out loud but Harvey could somehow find a way to betray her and even give the betrayal words but whatever this deep-rooted connection between them could never officially be put into words or actions. Never in her adult life had she felt that raw rip of betrayal, not even when she learned years after the fact that her ex-husband Quentin had already been seeing Lisa before divorce was even on the table. It didn't bother her as much as Harvey putting a devastating professional hit on her career.

Maybe she felt so lousy because of her deep-rooted disappointment?

Or maybe it was the fact that she had let him in over the years and didn't even realize how much she came to rely, trust and care for him?

The revelation had snuck up on her like a virus, and now she was sick in the aftermath. With a few words it was all put in jeopardy.

Harvey had officially broke Jessica's heart.

She thought back to the look in Harvey's eyes. She was now haunted by the look on his face. It was full of regret and the rational part of her could see that he was also in pain in confessing without having a reason to come clean. It's not like he was caught or like she had him on the ropes. He was volunteering the confession which made it all the more raw and heartbreaking, it was out of left field. Harvey was Jessica's blind spot, not her attacker on the opposing side. She could have sworn she saw Harvey's eyes glass over with the threat of tears spilling. His voice was thick like it was about to break and his jaw was locked with insurmountable tension and fear, but he soldiered through his confession. Whoever said 'honesty was the best policy' was a dick as she liked to put it; they didn't know what the aftermath felt like, nor did they care. That philosophy was a mantra to make the confessor feel better not the receiver.

That night on the rooftop Jessica let the tears fall, too broken to fight the cry she had held for years.

Gods didn't cry. But that night she became a mere mortal again.

Harvey Spector had done it. He managed to do what no other man had ever done before- not Van Dyke, not Quentin, not Daniel Hardman himself- he broke her.

She let the tears fall in anger, in shock, in betrayal but most of all in grief because things would never be the same again.

She couldn't help but muse, once a move was made in the night, the daylight could never shine enough sun to undo what had already been done.

Every time she thought about that night, even weeks after the fact, she would still choke up, always forced to swallow the aftermath and digest the consequences Harvey's confession put into motion. The words still too powerful, the exchange too devastating to be considered water under the bridge.

A knock at her door shook her from her heavy thoughts.

"You're here late Jessica. What are you doing?" Harvey's deep voice vibrated in her ears. Without turning her chair Jessica sat still, paralyzed for a second interrupted from her heavy thoughts. After a few beats she offered a monotone response of "Strategizing."

"Ava's case?"

"No, rewriting the rules" Jessica offered in the same tone, making no qualms that she was not in the mood to invite him in, not even deigning to turn around to face him in a sign of respect.

"I don't understand." Harvey lightly pushed. This was the most they conversed all week.

"We can't rewrite history. But we can shape the future with our actions in the present." She wasn't sure where the philosophical response came from but it was quite poignant as to where she found herself after it all. Harvey didn't respond at first. Jessica could hear Harvey's Ferragamo's hit the hardwood as he started to make his way into her office uninvited. She could see his silhouette in the reflection of her window make his way into her office, closing the door and encroaching enemy lines. His hands placed in his pockets he pushed, "Care to elaborate?"

"Not with you. You might just file it away to use against me one day." The frigidness of her words caused Harvey to recoil a bit, the words causing his eyebrows to knit together and his posture to visibly retract a bit by the verbal bitch slap. "Ouch…I guess I deserved that." Harvey sat down in one of the guest chairs in front of Jessica's desk and he sat back. She hadn't told him to leave so he took it as an opportunity to do some damage control. ."Jessica saw him disappear behind her tall desk chair and realized he was making himself comfortable in the chair across her desk. He had balls, she'd give him that. She decided in those few seconds it was her turn to make him hurt. She knew her passive aggressive/ all-professional routine would eat away at him and eventually this moment would come. She felt strong in her conviction she was ready to face him, clearly she was hitting home runs with her words right out the gate.

Jessica turned her chair enough now to see his face, her body angled toward the far side of her office and her head tilted to Harvey in mock amusement, "You think a snarky comment will wipe the slate clean?" she smiled at the audacious thought.

Harvey mirrored the smile and offered, "No, of course not." He lifted his hands in mock surrender and said "I came here in a peace offering, humbled with white flags raised, begging for a cease-fire, because I can't take this passive aggressive silent treatment anymore. It feels unnatural for us to be at odds. I want to deal with it, its been weeks Jessica." He waited to see her reaction.

The mock amused tone was still appropriate at his trite attempt to bury the hatchet, "Harvey the bulldozer, ready to move the mess to the side-" Harvey saw a mile away what type of conversation this was going to be, so he interrupted, "-No. I want to move forward-" and Jessica talked over him, a little more aggressive by the end, "-even if he hasn't received citation that it's safe to do so."

Harvey let out a big sigh and leaned forward on his elbows and looked back into Jessica's eyes. His tone was softer this time and he decided to speak from the place that was hurting, "Look, I care very much for you and…" Jessica scoffed, mocking him, knowing how hard it was for him to talk about feelings so she used the tidbit and said, "You do? You have an interesting way of showing it Harvey" her voice dripping in mock cruelty.

Harvey was now fully frustrated at Jessica's cold demeanor. His voice started to rise as a result, "This is what I mean! Stop this shit! If you can dish the sarcastic comments then actually talk about it with me! You've been doing this for weeks."

Their eyes were locked in the stand still. Jessica looked away and stared at picture on the far wall, now offering Harvey her profile in response. "I'm currently not in the mood."

A few beats of silence passed and Harvey pinched the top of his nose to release the tension in his forehead. He gently offered in his deeply masculine voice with a hint of exposure of his regret, "Have my actions really made you this impervious to me? After everything?"

Jessica swallowed hard, truly taking his question into consideration. There was so much good there between them but was it now enough to try to mend their shattered relationship. Was she ready to sever the ties for good and treat him as any other employee or could this still be fixed?.

Still not looking at him, she dryly offered, "Unfortunately your actions have consequences; which is what I have been trying to drill into that stubborn head of yours since the day I met you. It is what it is."

Harvey watched her carefully. Her body sitting stiff as a board, her leg crossed one over the other and her arms mimicking the same body language, not in insecurity but in protection. He couldn't see her face completely but from her profile, he could tell eyes were somewhere else even though the words were very much in the present. He parroted her words in disbelief, "It is what it is. What about all the good stuff, huh? What happens to that?"

"It becomes history."

He just watched her, sitting still, statuesque and cold, like a neo-classic marble sculpture, dead behind the eyes, but nonetheless beautiful. Harvey realized he was losing the war; he was losing her.

Harvey began to chuckle self deprecatingly at the realization. This was how it was going to end after everything, after twenty years. He had put the brakes in motion because the locomotive was gaining too much speed, enough to jump the track. He realized this was his most triumphant screw up, bar none.

The amusing laugh coming from Harvey was enough to get Jessica's attention. She turned her head and chair to now face him and she watched as his shoulders began to shake in a genuine chuckle, his hand covering his eyes, "What could possibly be funny?" her face contorted in a baffled expression. .

"It's just that I never would have imagined we would be here, facing off on enemy lines." Harvey offered in the most casual way.

Jessica felt the rattle of anger start to come to the surface she snipped, "I didn't put us here!" finishing with an aggressive snarl, "YOU DID!" her voice rising to punctuate the point. This is what Harvey wanted, to get Jessica angry. Angry was good. He knew her well enough that he would get somewhere with her when she was angry.

Harvey's tone stepped up with the same edge and offered, "You do realize I could have kept you in the dark and kept the secret to myself, but I respected and cared enough about you…"."Jessica shot up from her chair and growled, "Don't you dare finish that sentence you arrogant son of a bitch! You goddamn did it because your guilt was eating you from the inside out! You did it to make yourself feel better, not to protect m…" With every word she became more predatory; each word like a scratch to the proverbial carcass. She was leaning over her glass desk getting right in Harvey's face.

Harvey was now up on his feet and got right back in her face over the desk, "NO! I did it because I wanted to be in an honest place with you again! Yes I made an error in judgment, yes I screwed up colossally, yes I betrayed you, but my guilt came from a place that was not eating me up, it was suffocating me! I couldn't do this to you, anyone but not… you."

The look between them was disarming. Clearly both were still passionate about the bond they once shared. Maybe there was something still worth saving?

"Why?" Jessica's voice softened. She needed to know why he came clean, what possessed him in the first place, to put her mind in a place to start making decisions.

"You are the most important person in my life! I owe all of THIS to you! I would not be HERE if it wasn't for you!" Harvey was impassioned, his chest slightly heaving at the energy it took to drive home the point of what she meant to him and how he lost his way.

"So you making this choice is on me? I brought you in, I showed you how to play the game and therefore what? I brought this on myself?"

"Jesus, Jessica! Don't twist my words! I am telling you that before anyone, you came…come…first! I have been unwaveringly loyal to you without question for almost twenty years. Before there was Mike, Zoe, Donna, Scottie, there was you! I am grateful to you and for you. You are my family."

She watched him carefully. Harvey had that same haunted look in his eyes now as he had on the rooftop. His eyes slightly glassed, his jaw locked and tightly wound, his tone of voice was disarmingly devastating. She still had to push. It wasn't enough for her. She couldn't take his word at face value anymore. The trust was shattered.

"And you didn't know this before you made the dirty deal?"

Harvey's eyes never left Jessica's. With that question came the realization of how far he really lost his way. He swallowed hard, never had the darkness of the night scared him like it did at this moment; the moment of truth when he could lose the most important woman in his life.

"I don't know what else to say but I am profusely sorry, and I will do what I can to make this right."

The hostility had softened; they were now on a playing field of honesty, no pretense.

"Why'd you do it Harvey?"

"Truth be told… My uh…ego was so bruised after our talk about putting my name on the wall, I had to prove you wrong, that I was worthy."

"Worthy of what exactly?"

"To be on your level. So you would stop seeing me as your puppy or pit-bull or whatever… so that you would start to see me as a man, worthy enough to be by your side officially. We went through hell and back together with Hardman and everyone else before that asshole, yet still you saw me as pawn and dispensable after all of it; good enough to stand shoulder to shoulder but unfit to be your equal, at least officially."

"I never said that. I said I wouldn't make a move when…"

"Bullshit! You said you wouldn't slap someone else's name up there! Is that what I am… someone else?"

It was Jessica's turn to reflect on the facts leading up to the betrayal. Had she really made him feel this broken? Had it been solely her fault that she turned her ace into a wild card? She felt a slight pang of shame that she went there with him. Truth be told, she saw him as so much more that what she even let on to herself. Harvey would always hold a special place for her, and she made this man feel like he was worthless…Her eyes went to the glass desk in front of her, not able to look him in the eyes because of the shame she felt.

"Jessica, answer me!" Harvey pushed.

"You know better than that Harvey. If you were anyone else… I wouldn't be this upset and disappointed." It was all she could offer at the moment, the explosion of emotions she felt inside with one question was overwhelming, having to come to terms with what this man really meant to her.

"At the time that's not how I saw it! When you nixed my proposal, I came to the realization that you would never see me that way, that you would never see me as anything but a project. So, I acted out to get your attention and then you kept pushing me and I lost my mind and I made the dirty deal." There was the why she was asking for and when he explained himself, the rational part of Jessica understood. But she gave him more than one opportunity to fix what was beginning to crack.

"I reached out to you for weeks to mend fences, it didn't have to get to this."

"It wouldn't have made a difference. We would have always been stuck in this place of push and pull if I took one of those olive branches, so I chose to go on the offense."

"Oh, that makes so much more sense now! So your solution was to nuke our relationship and go into the night, leaving me in the dust of the aftermath? That is so noble of you Harvey!" She was back to sarcasm. An aggressive sarcasm at that was enough to move her from her cemented spot; animated to drive her point home and come around from the desk to mock him and it pissed him off.

To check her Harvey reached for Jessica's forearm as she attempted to move pass him. She wasn't going to runaway when they started to make progress. He held her in place, close enough to smell her perfume and feel the heat radiating off her. He couldn't let her go and with a compelling tone he offered, "If I couldn't have you, I wanted to make sure you would never forget me! That's how livid I was with you. I became spiteful. It got to that level and I hate myself for it. Turns out, when it was all said and done, I couldn't do it to you."

"What did you just say to me?" Jessica asked perplexed at what just came out of Harvey's mouth.

"I said I couldn't do it to you."

"No you said, 'couldn't have me…"She watched him, every reaction, every twitch, every breath, and he quickly recovered.

"I just meant that if I couldn't have the chance to be at your level with your blessing I rationed the student would become the teacher. It was the most reckless decision I have ever made and I will regret it for the rest of my life."

"I…uh…just can't do this. I don't have the energy. I keep going back and thinking…" She broke away from his grip and took two steps back now face to face with him, solid in her place. Harvey sighed and impassionedly countered, "That's just it, stop going back. Let's just find a way to move forward. Feel it now and move forward."

"You don't get it, do you?" A small smile finding her lips at his density, shaking her head incredulously, tears coming to her eyes as her insides rattled with the emotion she has been fighting for weeks. They were again getting the best of her.

"Get what? I know what I did and I keep apologizing and trying to find a way to move on but you…"

"YOU BROKE MY HEART HARVEY!" Jessica belted as the tears started to come down her face, she couldn't control them anymore, the same way they flowed that night on the rooftop, but this time they felt cathartic, not painful. "You betrayed me! I can't sit here and pretend everything will be fine while I idly wait for the next time you are going to twist the knife because if we're being totally honest, the knife is already in my back. And even if it will somehow be dislodged and the wound will heel, I will forever be scarred by you…YOU!

She started to laugh through her tears at how incredible it sounded out loud.

Jessica's outburst was not what Harvey had expected; it was truth without conditions, it was truth without pretense.

It was what she was battling inside and it felt good to lay the responsibility on the man who put her in that place.

Harvey was floored at her confession. It literally took his breath away. He began to feel lightheaded and the same weight of his previous guilt made its presence known once again. It hit him like a thousand pounds dropped straight on his center of gravity. This was something Harvey was not prepared for.

He watched her in awe of the confession as she purged. He had to fix it. He felt more compelled now than at the start of his initial attempt when he found himself at her door. If this was their journey, he'd be damned if he walked away from her now, after the mess of his own doing.

Jessica continued, "I don't have children, or husband or a relationship for that matter. What I have here at the firm, this is family to me. And you, you were the closest person I had. Never in million years did I think YOU would be the one to do that to me. Anyone else but you Harvey…that's why I can't move on…not right now."

"Jessica I…" He came a few steps toward her.

And she moved a few back, her hand coming up in protest trying to get her bearings again, "Harvey don't, don't apologize again. I just need you to go right now."

"I can't, not now. Not after what you just said. If you are going to lay your cards on the table, so will I. I am so profusely sorry and I will do what I can to fix this believe me. I will wait as long as you need, but I need only one thing from you and it will be the last thing I ask you."

"What?"

"Just give me hope..." Harvey reached for Jessica's wrist gently and placed it over his shoulder. He came to her inch by inch. Harvey's hands gripped her ribcage and he leaned his forehead on hers. Their breaths now mixed and the intimacy of the embrace was somewhere between comforting and shattering in its nature.

Jessica's hand found the nape of Harvey's neck, squeezing his flesh as her eyes closed at the dichotomous feeling of being in Harvey's arms at this moment. It was electrifying and yet terrifying at the same time.

Harvey sometimes wondered what it would be like to hold her like this, to comfort her, and support her. He had never been given this opportunity in the past. Harvey had contemplated it when she found out Quentin was sick, or when he passed, but that had nothing to do with him and it wouldn't have meant more to her than just a comforting hug of a friend. Tonight, he was hoping it would help them turn the corner of this painful situation and if he were really lucky, maybe it would start the mend of her heart. Maybe Jessica could see that the worst was over, that the ugliest thing that could happen between them, happened, and that they were still standing, the affection and care didn't die, and they could start to rebuild.

They stood there for a few seconds before Harvey pulled her in for the full embrace.

He held her for dear life.

He hoped the grip would translate what words couldn't, how much he truly needed her, how much he cared, how much he regretted, how much he…

Now cheek-to-cheek, Jessica felt Harvey's lips come close to her ear. His deep voice reverberated over the silence of her office, even though just a whisper, his plea found it's way to her heart.

"Please Jessica, just give me hope of forgiveness, one day."

After a few deafening seconds of silence, that felt like hours to Harvey, Jessica nodded against his body, tearing again knowing she was taking the biggest chance of her life letting him back in, but this time he didn't see those tears. Those were hers to reconcile and the thought cause her to bite her lip to regain control of her emotions.

It would take time, but she was willing to try and let the healing process begin.

What the evolution of their relationship looked like, she couldn't answer, but she did know deep down she couldn't let him go, not just yet. There was too much there and enough hope to to make it another day.

She couldn't yet find the words but her heart guided her to the decision.

They stood there for a few more moments in the darkness of her office, hoping that with the daylight it would begin to erase move in the night.


End file.
